It Don't Come Easy

The award-winning Monsieur Jean series tackles the complexities of everyday life

Since the character of Monsieur Jean first walked onto the page in 1998, he has endeared himself to readers, maturing with each frantic, surreal, heart-warming episode. Beginning as a young Parisian bachelor, defeatist writer, and urban bon vivant, Jean has reluctantly transitioned into a family man of forty, learning how to live with, and ultimately love those around him unconditionally.

Constantly surrounded by a group of childhood classmates, an unbearably idealistic live-in friend Felix and his adopted son, Eugene, as well as his sweet daughter Julie, Jean questions life and those of others in an honest and endearing way; his unmistakable joie de vivre always undermined by a palpable sense of cynicism. The joy of these award-winning cartoons stems from that fact that Jean’s weaknesses are our own; his doubts about life, universal; his relentless quest for happiness understood.

With their unique collaboration, both writing and drawing each Monsieur Jean story, celebrated French cartoonists Dupuy & Berberian prove time and time again just how powerful and seductive a simple, yet elegantly told story can be.